Greetings, just an old fella needing to make the right decision:) I have a smart tv - Panasonic L50ET60 and want to buy a blu-ray. The local hifi store told me I must buy the same brand which I think is wrong. I am just confused as to which device controls the smart apps. I want to make sure that if I buy a blu-ray with minimal apps it will not affect me using the tv ones. I am just not sure which device controls what or does this not matter. Thanks, John

An advantage of having different brands means you potentially will have access to a wider range of applications. The biggest downside is that you may potentially need 2 remote controls, but depending on the combination, you may well be able to control the BluRay player with the TV remote, or vice-versa regardless of the brand combination. Worst case is you have 2 remotes which isn't too big a deal.

Realistically, most of the brands seem to have much the same range of applications, bear in mind that if you wanted to use Skype, you'll probably need to buy the separate camera which is usually in the $150-$200 region somewhere.

My dad got one of the Panasonic 50" Plasmas and I was very impressed with it, so I suspect you can probably largely disregard the applications component of the bluray player.

The reason to buy a Panasonic BluRay player, is that, for the number sold... they seem to be the most reliable of the pack. Feature wise, all I would be looking for is ease of network connectivity. If the unit has wifi built in it will be a piece of cake to update the firmware so you can ensure your BluRay can play back all the new releases that come to market. If you don't update a BluRay player, it often won't be able to play the latest discs (Life of Pi is a good example)... and connecting / upgrading over wifi is the easiest way to ensure this happens. Plugging in directly with an ethernet cable is the BEST, but it's not always possible.